The Brontë Sisters: The Complete Novels + A Biography of the Author E-Book

The Brontë Sisters

• Herausgeber: Book House Publishing
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This book contains several HTML tables of contents.The first table of contents (at the very beginning of the ebook) lists the titles of all novels included in this volume. By clicking on one of those titles you will be redirected to the beginning of that work, where you'll find a new TOC that lists all the chapters and sub-chapters of that specific work.Here you will find the complete novels of The Brontë Sisters:- Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë- Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë- Villette, by Charlotte Brontë- The Professor, by Charlotte Brontë- Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

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Anne, Charlotte & Emily Brontë

THE COMPLETE NOVELS

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Table of Contents

The Brontë Sisters — An Extensive Biography

Agnes Grey

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Jane Eyre

Shirley

Villette

The Professor

Wuthering Heights

The Brontë Sisters — An Extensive Biography

by Esther Alice Chadwick

 

Chapter 1 — The Brontë Irish Ancestry (1777-1802)

Chapter 2 — Patrick Brontë’s Training for the Ministry (1802-1805)

Chapter 3 — The Rev. Patrick Brontë at Hartshead (1811-1815)

Chapter 4 — The Rev. Patrick Brontë at Thornton (1815-1820)

Chapter 5 — Haworth (1820-1824)

Chapter 6 — Cowan Bridge (1824-1825)

Chapter 7 — Haworth (1825-1831)

Chapter 8 — Dewsbury (1831-1832)

Chapter 9 — Haworth, Roe Head and Dewsbury Moor (1832-1838)

Chapter 10 — Emily Brontë at Law Hill, Southowram (1836-1839)

Chapter 11 — Charlotte Brontë’s Offers of Marriage (1839)

Chapter 12 — Branwell Brontë and the Curates at Haworth (1839-1842)

Chapter 13 — Anne Brontë

Chapter 14 — Rawdon (1841)

Chapter 15 — London (1842-1848)

Chapter 16 — Brussels (1842)

Chapter 17 — M. and Madame Heger

Chapter 18 — The Brontës’ Experience at the Pensionnat

Chapter 19 — Charlotte Brontë’s Second Year at Brussels

Chapter 20 — Why Charlotte Brontë Left Brussels So Abruptly

Chapter 21 — The Attempt to Earn a Livelihood (1844-1845)

Chapter 22 — The Publishing Venture: Poems (1845-1846)

Chapter 23 — The First Brontë Novels (1845-1847)

Chapter 24 — Wuthering Heights

Chapter 25 — Charlotte and Anne’s Visit to London; Death of Branwell and Emily

Chapter 26 — Shirley (1848-1849)

Chapter 27 — Death of Anne Brontë (1849)

Chapter 28 — Charlotte Brontë’s Visits to London (1849-1850)

Chapter 29 — Charlotte Brontë’s First and Second Visit to the English Lakes (1850)

Chapter 30 — Charlotte Brontë’s Sixth Visit to London (1851)

Chapter 31 — Rev. A. B. Nicholls

Chapter 32 — Charlotte Brontë’s Engagement, Marriage, and Death

Chapter 33 — Memorials

Chapter 1 — The Brontë Irish Ancestry (1777-1802)

Severalattempts have been made to retrace the steps of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the father of the famous authors of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, for the purpose of trying to discover if Ireland held the secret of the passionate novels written by Emily and Charlotte Brontë; but this research was not begun sufficiently early to meet with much chance of success. If Mrs. Gaskell had crossed the Irish Sea, when she was gathering the material for her Life of Charlotte Brontë, she might possibly have been fortunate in obtaining some clue to the ancestors of the Brontës, which might have helped her to gauge the peculiar character of the famous sisters, whose novels differed so much from any that had been written previously.

Few novels have ever aroused so much curiosity with regard to their origin as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The scenes and characters in Jane Eyre have been traced to a certain extent, but there is little or nothing that can claim to be Irish. Ireland is mentioned but once, and then as the place where Rochester tells Jane Eyre that he will secure a situation for her when he marries Blanche Ingram. There is nothing in Wuthering Heights that can be called peculiarly Irish, and it has not been proved that the foundation of the story owes anything directly to Irish tales, which have gathered round the names of the Brontës in Ireland.

The Brontë sisters wrote of places they had actually seen, and as none of them had visited Ireland before they wrote their novels, Irish life is not referred to at all, unless Charlotte’s sarcastic reference to Ireland and the Irish in Shirley may be allowed to count. Here, it will be remembered, she designates her father’s native place as “the land of shamrocks and potatoes,” and she describes the Irish curate, Mr. Malone, as “a tall, strongly-built personage, with real Irish legs and arms, and a face as genuinely national: not the Milesian face — not Daniel O’Connell’s style, but the high-featured, North American-Indian sort of visage, which belongs to a certain class of the Irish gentry, and has a petrified and proud look, better suited to the owner of an estate of slaves, than to the landlord of a free peasantry.” Neither the nationality nor the brogue of the Irish curate, Malone, seems to have gained the respect of the author of Shirley, which is somewhat surprising, since she was the daughter of an. Irish curate herself. “When Malone’s raillery became rather too offensive, which it soon did, they joined in an attempt to turn the tables on him, by asking him how many boys had shouted Trish Peter!’ after him as he came along the road that day (Malone’s name was Peter — the Rev. Peter Augustus Malone); requesting to be informed whether it was the mode in Ireland for clergymen to carry loaded pistols in their pockets, and a shillelagh in their hands, when they made pastoral visits; inquiring the signification of such words as vele, firrum, hellum, storrum (so Malone invariably pronounced veil, firm, helm, storm), and employing such other methods of retaliation as the innate refinement of their minds suggested.”

This incident was probably based upon Patrick Brontë’s habit of carrying a loaded pistol and stout walking-stick in his early days when a curate at Dewsbury, for he was in Yorkshire during the Luddite riots.

Dr. Wright, in his Brontës in Ireland, did his best to give Ireland the credit of being the background of the Brontë novels, but there has been very little to confirm the stories which he relates. It must, however, be recognised, that the Celtic fire of the Irish race glows in the tales, and the Brontë sisters had the fierce Irish temperament, which revolts against injustice and conventionality. Heredity must also claim its full share in moulding the Brontë character, for there is no doubt that the Rev. Patrick Brontë influenced his daughters more than anyone else in their early days, and it was from him that they inherited a love of literature. The books and magazines which he provided, though strong meat for young people, helped to make them mentally robust and imaginative, even when mere children.

Although Ireland cannot claim to have inspired the Brontë novels directly, yet the father of the famous sisters deserves more credit than it has been usual to accord to him. Much of what he published was of Ireland and the Irish people, and there is no doubt that he was in the habit of telling his children stories and legends of his native country. He was reared among Irish peasants and, in his day, “fairies, witches, goblins, spectres, magic wells and caverns, and haunted dells”were as real to the Irish peasant as any of the physical appearances with which he was daily confronted. It is not then a matter for wonder that the Brontë children coloured their stories with their vivid imagination.

Emily Brontë was the most imaginative of the trio, and she was always considered the most typically Irish of the family. In some respects she resembled her father in build and features — tall and lanky — “with a man’s big stride, an oval face, shifting eyes, beautiful brown hair, and a proud and reserved manner.”

The ancestors of Emily and Charlotte Brontë cannot be traced beyond their settlement on the banks of the Boyne.

Every effort has been made to prove that the Brontë sisters came of a literary stock, though it is not possible to do that without changing the Greek name of Brontë (which accounts for Charlotte Brontë in her early days signing herself Charles Thunder) to that of the Hibernian O’Prunty, which is now considered to be the original family name, though this cannot be absolutely proved.

One of the most cherished items supposed to refer to the Irish Brontës has been unearthed by Dr. Douglas Hyde, who in 1895 published The Story of Early Gaelic Literature, in which he mentions an old Irish tale contained in a manuscript in his possession, written in 1763 by one Patrick O’Prunty, whom he assumes to be an ancestor of Charlotte Brontë. The romance is entitled The Adventures of the Son of Ice Counsel. According to Dr. Douglas Hyde there is a colophon on the last page in Irish, which invokes the blessing of the reader, in honour of the Trinity and of the Virgin Mary, on the author, Patrick O’Prunty. The tale tells of a fight which continued “from the beginning of the night till the rising of the sun in the morning, and was only just stopped, as Diodorus says battles were, by the intervention of the bards.”

This Patrick O’Prunty is assumed to be the elder brother of Charlotte Brontë’s grandfather, Hugh Brontë. In that case he must have written his manuscript some fourteen years before Patrick Brontë was born. That being so, it is somewhat singular that Patrick Brontë did not know of it, for, if he had, he would probably not only have told his children but also Mrs. Gaskell, when she was interviewing him to gain particulars of his early home and his forbears. It is well known that Mrs. Gaskell got very little information about the Irish Brontës, and she confessed that she was afraid both of Charlotte Brontë’s Irish father and her Irish husband, and consequently she did not probe far, but was content with the scant information which Patrick Brontë supplied. It must, however, be remembered that Mr. Brontë at this time was nearly eighty years old, and his memory was failing; he was almost blind, so that, if he knew of any tradition, the absence of documents or letters referring to his early home would prevent him from proving his points with any degree of satisfaction; and, moreover, it was the Life of his daughter that Mrs. Gaskell was writing, so that the old man was justified in keeping his daughter’s biographer to the strict bounds of her subject.

Patrick O’Prunty, author of The Adventures of the Son of Ice Counsel, judging by his colophon, was evidently a Roman Catholic. On the other hand, Hugh Brontë appears to have brought up all his children as Protestants, and Patrick Brontë was ever a staunch defender of the Church of England, as was his daughter Charlotte.

Old Alice Brontë maintained that the Brontë family had always been Protestant, and she doubted if her mother at any time had been a Roman Catholic, for all the Brontës were bitter opponents of Roman Catholicism. It is strange that, with their well-known hatred of Roman Catholics, Charlotte and Emily Brontë should have been sent to be educated at a school in Brussels, which was under the care of Monsieur and Madame Heger, who were very strict Roman Catholics.

That the thoughts of the Brontë girls often turned to Ireland is proved by a small manuscript, still in existence in the Brontë Museum, which was written by Charlotte Brontë when she was but thirteen years of age; its title is AnAdventure in Ireland. As was common in many of the Irish tales of that day, it tells of ghosts, and possibly it is based on one of her father’s Irish fire-side stories. At fourteen, Charlotte Brontë wrote another fairy tale, The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, which has since been published in Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, by Sir W. Robertson Nicoll. Instead of the usual title page, it has a kind of colophon on the last page —

The adventures of Ernest

Alembert. A Tale

By Charlotte Brontë

May the 25th, 1830.

The sixteen pages of this well-told fairy tale are stitched in a cover of rough brown paper, and it is noticeable that Charlotte Brontë does not use the double-dotted final in writing her surname.

Devotees of the Brontës, in their eagerness to proveCharlotte Brontë’s descent from a literary ancestry, have said that Patrick Brontë was named after his literary uncle, Patrick O’Prunty, and that in consequence he struggled hard to become an author who would add lustre to his family. However desirable this may seem, it lacks all the elements of truth. It is quite sufficient to know that Patrick Brontë was born on St. Patrick’s day, 17th March, 1777, and for those who are interested in figures, it is said that a child born on a date which contains so many sevens — seven being considered the perfect number — as could be crowded into the actual date, was destined to become famous. It has also been noted that Patrick Brontë died on the seventh day of June, 1861. Both Patrick Brontë and his daughter Charlotte were superstitious concerning numbers, and Patrick was proud to remember that he took his B.A. degree on 23rd April, 1806 — Shakespeare’s accredited birthday. His eldest daughter, Maria, was also christened on 23rd April, 1814. Charlotte Brontë and her life-long friend, Ellen Nussey, never failed to remember that their respective birthdays, one on 21st April, and the other on 22nd April, were so near to that of Shakespeare as in one case to be possibly the same date.

That Patrick Brontë was proud of his Christian name there is no doubt, though in England it always pointed to the fact that he was an Irishman. In those days Ireland was not held in high esteem, especially by the inhabitants of Great Britain. Patrick Brontë, however, gave his Christian name to his only son, who was considered in his early days the genius of the remarkable Brontë family. Though in his own home he was always called by his second name, Branwell — his mother’s maiden name — yet everyone in Haworth knew him as Pat Brontë, the surname being pronounced as one syllable; others referred to him as “the Vicar’s Patrick,” and, though all the Brontë children were born in Yorkshire, they had no Yorkshire blood in their veins, and were always known as the Irish Parson’s children.

There is little that is worthy of the name of a Brontë shrine in Ireland to-day, though the district in which Patrick Brontë spent his early years has not greatly changed. The little thatched cabin in Emdale, County Down, in which Patrick Brontë was born, has been demolished, and nothing definite remains to mark the birthplace of the much maligned father of the immortal Brontës. It was a lonely little cottage with its mud floor and its two tiny rooms — one used as a bedroom and the other as a kitchen and corn kiln; the rent was said to be sixpence a week.

Patrick Brontë was very reticent about his early Irish home, and his poor relations. He told Mrs. Gaskell that he was a native of Aghaderg, but this was not quite correct, as Emdale is in the townland or parish of Drumballyroney-cum-Drumgooland, which adjoins the parish of Aghaderg. It must be said, however, that the parish boundary is not well defined, and Patrick Brontë’s memory in his old age may have been at fault. The little cabin was on the Warrenpoint and Banbridge Road, at right angles to the Newry and Rathfriland Road, and about eight miles from Newry. Banbridge is still noted for its linen manufacture. The tiny cabin in which Patrick Brontë was born soon became too small for the growing family, and a second house, about half a mile away, in the Lisnacreevy Townland was taken, where all his brothers and sisters, except the youngest, were born.

Patrick Brontë was the eldest of a family of ten — five boys and five girls. He said that his father, Hugh Brontë, was a small farmer, and that he was left an orphan at an early age. He claimed that his ancestors had originally come from the South of Ireland and had settled near Loughbrickland. There was a tradition that Patrick Brontë’s forbears, humble as they were, had descended from an ancient family of good position. Patrick Brontë, always clung to this idea, and it is possible, that this suggested to Emily the remark of Ellen Dean to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. “Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I. was, should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer.”

Of Patrick Brontë’s mother little is known. It is clear, however, that her eldest son regarded her with affection, for he is credited with sending her twenty pounds the year after he left Ireland, and he kept up the practice all her life. She was known before her marriage as Alice McClory, “the prettiest girl in County Down, with a smile that would charm a mad bull.” In Shirley, Charlotte Brontë assigns that magic witchery to Shirley Keeldar, a character, she tells us, drawn from her sister Emily, and supposed to represent her as she would have been under the circumstances given in Shirley.

It is said that Emily Brontë resembled her paternal grandmother, as well as her father, for Patrick Brontë was tall and thin, though his father, Hugh Brontë, was described by his youngest daughter, Alice, as not very tall and purty stout.” Whilst Emily was the most like her father, Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë were small in stature, like their Cornish mother, but with much of the Irish temperament, whilst the gentle Anne, the youngest child, was like her mother both in mind and build — so thought Miss Branwell, their aunt — and it was probably for this reason she was always looked upon as the aunt’s favourite. This was shown in Miss Branwell’s will, by which Anne received a valuable watch and chain, with the trinkets attached, whilst Charlotte only got a workbox, Emily a workbox and an ivory fan, and Branwell a Japan dressing box, though Mrs. Gaskell makes the mistake of saying that Branwell was left out of the will altogether.

Patrick Brontë’s youngest sister, Alice Brontë, died on 15th January, 1891, at the age of ninety-four. She was interviewed during her later years by several Brontë enthusiasts, including the late Rev. Thomas Leyland, who said she liked to talk to him of her eldest brother Patrick, who was twenty years her senior. As he left Ireland for Cambridge when she was only a girl of five, and only returned to his native land once when she was a girl of eight, she knew very little of him, except to regard him as the clever member of the family, and that he was of a studious disposition, and loved reading. She was proud of being a Brontë, and she delighted to talk about the literary success of her clever nieces.

Patrick Brontë was first a hand-loom weaver, and it is said that whilst weaving he might often have been seen with a book propped up in front of him, trying to ply the shuttle and read a little at the same time, just as in later days Emily Brontë was accustomed to have a German book in front of her when ironing in the kitchen at the Haworth parsonage.

Patrick Brontë’s parents were poor, and so far as is known they were quite illiterate, but he evidently got his first interest in learning from them and from the Presbyterian minister. When quite a boy, he had to earn his own living as a hand-loom weaver. Hence his great interest in later days in the hand-loom weavers of Yorkshire. He composed a poem which was intended to stimulate and encourage those of his parishioners who followed this form of employment. On the title page of the Cottage Poems the first verse is printed —

All you who turn the sturdy soil,

Or ply the loom with daily toil,

And lowly on, through life’s turmoil

For scanty fare:

Attend: and gather richest spoil,

To sooth your care.

Patrick Brontë never forgot “the rock from which he was hewn,” and his early literary efforts were reminiscent of his early days, when, to quote his poem,

My food is but spare

And humble my cot.

At the first exhibition in the Brontë Museum at Haworth, the Rev. J. B. Lusk, of Ballynaskeagh, lent a copy of a very old calico backed arithmetic by Voster, of Dublin, dated 1789. At this time Patrick Brontë would be a boy of twelve years of age. Inside the book are the following inscriptions: “Patrick Pruty’s book, bought in the year 1795.” The n in Prunty has been omitted.

Patrick Prunty his book and pen.

Patrick Prunty his book and pen (in red ink).

Patrick Brunty, (in larger letters).

Patrick Prunty, (large handwriting).

There is a geography, now in the Brontë Museum, which was printed in Dublin in 1795, and on page 129 is written “The Revd. P. Brontë.” There are also the names Walter Sellon and Walsh Bront, the latter name appearing several times, and in addition there is written, “Hugh Brontë His Book, in the year 1803.” Besides these are written on the inside of the cover some remarks on Irish characteristics which conclude by saying that the Irish are “violent in affection.” Also in a small copy of a New Testament is to be seen in faint writing the signature Alice, or Allie Brontë, which seems to point to the fact that it probably belonged to Patrick Brontë’s mother, who was known as Alice, Allie or Ayles Brontë, though, according to the parish registers of Drumgooland, her name was either Elinor, which appears three times in connection with the baptism of three of her children, or Eleanor in three other cases, whilst the surname is given as Brunty in every case but one, when it is entered as Bruntee, the handwriting probably being that of the minister or the parish clerk. All this helps to prove that the original name was Prunty or O’Prunty. Charlotte Brontë mentions a geography book “lent by papa” to her sister Maria, which was 120 years old in 1829.

As Patrick Brontë loved his books better than his hand-loom, he decided early in his teens to be a teacher. This meant much burning of the midnight oil — in his case a tiny rush-light. It was owing to his pursuit of knowledge under such unfavourable conditions that he injured his eyesight — a source of much trouble and pain in later life. By much self-denial, never allowing himself more than six hours sleep, he managed to pass the qualifying examination as a teacher, and at sixteen he was appointed master of Glascar Hill Presbyterian School. This appointment he kept for some five years.

According to Dr. Wright, a Presbyterian stickit minister, the Rev. David Harshaw, who had previously befriended the young teacher, assisted him in various ways, and especially by the loan of books. He was thus enabled to improve his qualifications, and he succeeded in being appointed master of the Church School at Drumballyroney.

Patrick Brontë was then a tall, handsome fellow of twenty-one, and he appears in his younger days to have been particularly fortunate in the guidance and help he obtained from ministers. Until he was able to manage his own affairs, “he hung on to the coat tails of a good minister,” which, as Mrs. Gaskell says, “is as wise a thing as any young man can do in his youth.”

The Rev. Thomas Tighe, Rector of Drumballyroney, was evidently much interested in young Brontë since he entrusted to him the education of his own children, and it was probably on the rector’s advice that Patrick Brontë decided to become a clergyman, first seeking to qualify for this office by entering Cambridge University. Mrs. Gaskell says, “This proved no little determination of will, and scorn of ridicule.” Why “scorn of ridicule” is not clear, for shortly after entering the University he gained three scholarships and several prizes, but he did not gain a scholarship before he entered Cambridge, as several writers have affirmed, but saved a sum of money and used it at Cambridge.

Although Patrick Brontë’s children were born and reared in Yorkshire, they were all noted for their Irish brogue. Mary Taylor told Mrs. Gaskell that when she first met Charlotte Brontë at Roe Head School, Dewsbury, she was struck with her strong Irish accent.

The passionate revolt of the Irish race and their strenuous struggle for freedom are evident in the Brontë novels, and there is more of sadness than of joy in them. The violence of the storm, the fury of intense passion, the weirdness of a moonlight night, and the moaning of the wind across the moors appealed to their Celtic nature.

The mother of the famous Brontë sisters, Maria Branwell, a daughter of a respected Methodist from Penzance, has not been proved to have been a true Celt, and it is just as well, for a passionate nature such as Patrick Brontë possessed would not have mated well with one equally fierce. The youngest daughter — gentle, patient Anne — was most like her mother, and her novels are very characteristic, lacking the fire and passion of her sisters.

The Brontë shrines in Ireland are held in veneration, not because of Patrick Brontë’s fame, but because he was the father of the famous novelists. The Brontë Glen, near Emdale, and the surrounding neighbourhood are rich in Irish relics.

There is a poem entitled “The Irish Cabin” in Patrick Brontë’s first book, a small volume of poems, published in 1811. There are now very few copies of this book extant: one is in the Brontë Museum at Haworth, and another at Knutsford, from which the following inscription in Patrick Brontë’s handwriting is copied.

The gift of the author to his beloved sister, Miss Branwell, as a small token of his affection and esteem.

Thornton, Nr. Bradford,

March 29th, 1816.

Patrick Brontë had a sincere affection for his humble Irish home, and in this poem he writes —

All peace, my dear cottage be thine!

Nor think that I’ll treat you with scorn;

Whoever reads verses of mine

Shall hear of the Cabin of Moume;

And had I but musical strains,

Though humble and mean in your station,

You should smile whilst the world remains,

The pride of the fair Irish Nation.

The very fact that Patrick Brontë published these poems, reminiscent of his Irish home, shows how mistaken Mrs. Gaskell was when she wrote that he dropped his Irish accent on leaving Cambridge, and had no further intercourse with his Irish relatives. She gives the impression that Mr. Brontë was ashamed of his Irish origin, which was not the case. Even to the day of his death he preferred Irish curates.

With the death in January, 1891, of Patrick Brontë’s youngest sister Alice, the last link with Patrick Brontë’s family was broken. Had it not been for the timely help of friends and relatives, old Alice Brontë would have spent her last days in poverty. When it was known that she was in actual need, after all her brothers had died, there were many who expected that the Rev. A. B. Nicholls would have allowed her a small income, seeing that he got all the money that his wife, Charlotte Brontë, left, and also the greater portion of what Patrick Brontë left, which together amounted to nearly £3,000. Added to this was the money he received from the Brontë furniture. It was with the Brontës’ money that Mr. Nicholls was able to retire from preaching and settle as a gentleman farmer. Miss Ellen Nussey was indignant that Mr. Nicholls did not come to the aid of the last of the Brontë aunts, and she also thought that Charlotte Brontë’s publishers might have allowed the old lady something, though it is not certain that they were even approached on the matter. A former friend of the Brontës in Ballynaskeagh, Dr. Caldwell of Birmingham, who was always keenly interested in the Brontë family, collected a sum of money for Alice Brontë’s immediate use. In 1882 he was also instrumental in securing for her an annuity of twenty pounds from the Pargeter’s Old Maids’ Charity Trustees, Birmingham, which allowance was continued until her death.

Only one of Patrick Brontë’s brothers is known to have visited his relatives at Haworth, but the tales told of the castigation he administered to the reviewer of Jane Eyre in the Quarterly Review are not true. County Down and Haworth were too far apart in those days, and neither the Vicar of Haworth nor his relatives had money to spare for long journeys. Consequently, the Irish members of the Brontë family knew less of their illustrious relatives than the friends in England, and even to this day they know little except what is published. A great grandchild of Sarah Brontë, the only sister of Patrick Brontë who married, resided for some years at Oakenshaw, near Bradford. There is also an Emily Brontë, a descendant of one of Patrick Brontë’s brothers, living in England to-day. It has been said that Patrick Brontë had little regard for his own native country, and that he was anxious to hide his Irish nationality, but this cannot be substantiated, for in 1836 he published A Brief Treatise on the best time and mode of Baptism, which was chiefly an answer to a tract issued by the Baptist Minister at Haworth. In this pamphlet, Patrick Brontë says: “One thing, however, I think I have omitted. You break some of your jokes on Irishmen. Do you not know, that an Irishman is your lord and master? Are you not under the king’s ministry? And are they not under O’Connell, an Irishman? And do not you or your friends pay him a yearly tribute under the title of rent? And is not the Duke of Wellington, the most famous, and the greatest of living heroes, an Irishman? And dare you, or your adherents, take one political step of importance without trembling, lest it should not meet the approbation of your allies in Ireland? Then, as an Irishman might say to you, refrain from your balderdash at once, and candidly own your inferiority.”

In The Maid of Killarney — the only novel ascribed to Patrick Brontë — he describes the Irish as “free, humourous, and designing; their courage is sometimes rash, and their liberality often prodigal: many of them are interesting and original; so that he who has once seen them will not easily forget them, and will generally wish to see them again.”

Chapter 2 — Patrick Brontë’s Training for the Ministry (1802-1805)

DuringPatrick Brontë’s nine years’ experience as a teacher, he saved enough to enable him to go to Cambridge, where, by means of scholarships and as sizar or servitor, he was able to be independent of help from anyone. He was probably recommended to St. John’s because the fees were very low, and because he would be sure to find there others, like himself, who could only obtain a University training by practising the greatest frugality.

Whatever may be said of Patrick Brontë in later life, he was most exemplary in his student days, working almost night and day to improve himself, and showing a fine spirit of manly independence.

By the courtesy of the Master of St. John’s College, I am allowed to copy the following particulars relating to Patrick Brontë’s residence at Cambridge.

The first entry is, “Patrick Branty, born in Ireland; admitted sizar 1st October, 1802; tutors Wood and Smith.” It is supposed that the men supplied the details to the Registrar of the College verbally and in person, and that the Irish brogue led to the mistake. The butler kept the Residence Register, in which appears Sizar Patrick Branty (erased) Brontë. First day of residence, 3rd October, 1802: kept by residence the following Terms —

1802 Michaelmas.

1803 Lent, Easter, Michaelmas.

1804 Lent, Easter, Michaelmas.

1805 Lent, Easter, Michaelmas.

1806 Lent.

Admitted B.A. 23rd April, 1806.

In the Register of Scholars and Exhibitions, opposite the name of Patrick Brontë appears —

Hare Exhibition February, 1803.

Hare Exhibition 19th March, 1804.

Hare Exhibition March, 1805.

There is no mention of an Exhibition in 1806.

The Hare Exhibitioners received amongst them the annual value of the Rectorial Tithe of Cherry Marham, Norfolk. The rent was £200 which, if they shared equally, would give £6,6s.8d. as the value of each exhibition.

At Midsummer, 1805, Patrick Brontë was elected a Dr. Goodman Exhibitioner; the value of the exhibition was £1,17s.6d., and he appears to have held it only one year.

From Christmas, 1803, to Christmas, 1807, he held one of the Duchess of Suffolk’s exhibitions of the value of £1,3s.4d.

It is difficult to see how he managed to pay his mother £20 a year, during his stay at Cambridge, as stated by Dr. Wright, unless he made a fair income by acting as coach to other students. The three scholarships only brought him the sum of £9,7s.4d. per annum, and it is evident that Dr. Wright did not know their small value, when he wrote in his Brontës in Ireland: “Brontë’s savings were ample to carry him over his first few months at Cambridge, and the Hare, Suffolk and Goodman Exhibitions were quite sufficient afterwards for all his wants as a student.” It is to be remembered that Patrick Brontë was a sizar, or servitor, which involved status and the payment of very reduced fees both to the College and the University.

In the Registers of the Bishop of London is the following —

“Patrick Brontë, A.B., of St. John’s College, Cambridge, ordained Deacon 10th August, 1806, in the Chapel at Fulham.

“Patrick Brontë has letters dimissory dated 19th December, 1807, to be ordained Priest by the Bishop of Salisbury 21st December, 1807.”

Whilst at college, Patrick Brontë, in addition to his scholarship and exhibitions, gained two prizes at least, consisting of two quarto copies of Homer and Horace. “Homeri Ilias. Graece et Latine. Samuel Clarke, S.T.P. Impensis Jacobi et Johannis Knapton, in Coemeterio D. Pauli, mdccxxix.” This book bears the College Arms on the cover, and has the following inscription: — “My prize book for always having kept in the first class at St. John’s College, Cambridge. P. Brontë, A.B. To be retained semper.

“Horatius Flaccus, Rich. Bentleii. Amstelodami, 1728.

“Prize obtained by Rev. Patrick Brontë, St. John’s College.”

The two volumes were in the possession of the late Dr. Dobie, of Keighley, who purchased them from Mrs. Ratcliffe (Tabitha Brown), sister of Martha Brown, the servant at the old Haworth Vicarage. Like Robertson of Brighton, Patrick Brontë seems to have had a leaning towards a military life, and at St. John’s College he joined the Volunteer Corps, and boasted that he drilled side by side with the grandfather of the present Duke of Devonshire and with Lord Palmerston. He delighted afterwards in telling how the Cambridge Volunteers practised to resist the invasion of England by the French. In later days he corresponded with Lord Palmerston, but the friendship, if ever it amounted to that, was never kept up. Another student at St. John’s at that time was Henry Kirk White, the young poet.

After his ordination, he returned to his old home in County Down, and his sister Alice was fond of telling that he preached one Sunday at Ballyroney church to a crowded congregation “with nothing in his hands,” that is without using a manuscript, which in those days was considered a great feat. There is no record that he ever visited his Alma Mater again, but soon after leaving Cambridge he secured a curacy at Wethersfield in Essex, where his marked Irish brogue betrayed his nationality.

That Patrick Brontë took his high vocation seriously and in the true spirit of devotion there is no doubt. One of his poems, written after he left Cambridge, is entitled “An Epistle to a Young Clergyman,” and is prefaced by the text, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

The seventh verse reads —

Dare not, like some, to mince the matter —

Nor dazzling tropes and figures scatter,

Nor coarsely speak, nor basely flatter,

Nor grovelling go:

But let plain truths, as Life’s pure water,

Pellucid flow.

There are sixteen stanzas altogether. Though Patrick Brontë wrote many verses, he would scarcely rank as a poet, but the lines are interesting because they reveal the spirit of a truly Christian man, anxious to dedicate himself to the work of the ministry of the Gospel.

Mr. Brontë’s first curacy was at Wethersfield in Essex, a south country village, where the soft speech of the Southerner was in great contrast to the young Irishman’s brogue.

A hundred and seven years ago, Wethersfield, with its copper spired church dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, was a small village, with a few cottages here and there, and a number of country mansions, where the county families lived. It is little more than that to-day, for Wethersfield has changed less than most villages during the last century. Even now, it is almost as difficult to approach as in Patrick Brontë’s day, for the nearest station, Braintree, is seven miles away. Cut off by the network of railways, it is just one of those old world places, which seem never to have awakened from their long sleep. The people, kind and hospitable, are employed mainly in raising garden seeds. Very rarely wandering far from their home, their isolation gives them something of the sterner independence of the North, and the countryside is typical of the hilly part of the county, so that Patrick Brontë must have rejoiced in the beauty of this English village, where he began the serious business of life, full of hope and with an Irishman’s determination to succeed.

It was a favourable place in which to start his ministerial life, for the Vicar, the Rev. Joseph Jowett — a Yorkshireman — was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge, and was a non-resident vicar of Wethersfield, so that much of the work of the parish devolved on the young handsome curate. In the old church register may be seen Patrick Brontë’s first signature, which was written on 12th October, 1806, on the occasion of a baptism.

Patrick Brontë stayed in this small agricultural village about two years, the last entry in his own handwriting being 1st January, 1809, when he evidently officiated at a funeral. It was not until 1887 that the information concerning his residence at Wethersfield was brought to light by Mr. Augustine Birrell. In his Monograph on Charlotte Brontë in the “Great Writers’ Series,” he gathered together some interesting particulars from the daughter of Mary Burder, Patrick Brontë’s sweetheart at Wethersfield.

This daughter, Mrs. Lowe, wrote an account for Mr. Birrell of her mother’s love story, which adds much interest to Patrick Brontë’s residence at Wethersfield, but the early love letters are not forthcoming.

It is, however, quite certain that the love story of the young curate and the pretty niece of his landlady would never have been published had not Patrick Brontë become the father of the famous novelists. It is said that the young curate, on his arrival in the village, found lodgings in a house opposite the church, where lived Miss Mildred Davy, whose niece, Mary Burder, “a pretty lassie of eighteen, with blue eyes and brown curls,” sometimes came from her home, known as “The Broad” — a large, old-fashioned farm-house across the fields. On one occasion, having brought a present of game for her aunt, she was busy in the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up, winding up the roasting-jack, when the new curate, seeing her thus occupied exclaimed, as told by her daughter, “Heaven bless thee! Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look’d on.” In the Cottage Poems, published by Patrick Brontë in 1811, are “Verses sent to a Lady on her Birthday,” and from the following verse, which gives the lady’s age as eighteen, it is probable that the poem was addressed to Mary Burder. After speaking of “Your rosy health and looks benign” he writes —

Behold, how thievish time has been!

Full eighteen summers you have seen,

And yet they seem a day!

Whole years, collected in time’s glass,

In silent lapse, how soon they pass,

And steal your life away!

It was a case of “love at first sight,” and Mary was often to be found at her aunt’s home, where the course of true love ran smoothly for a time. Mary’s relatives, however, were prejudiced against an Irishman, and both Mary and her kinsfolk were disappointed because they could not obtain from Patrick Brontë himself any particulars of his “ain folk.” The consequence was that they treated him with suspicion, and it was arranged that one of Mary’s uncles living at a distance should invite her to stay with him for some time; and letters sent to her by her lover were intercepted. When Mary Burder returned to her home, the love-sick curate had fled, after being compelled to return her letters. It is said that he left his portrait inscribed with the words, “Mary; you have torn the heart; spare the face.” Fourteen years afterwards she received a letter in the handwriting she once treasured. It was from the Rev. Patrick Brontë, asking her to become his second wife and the stepmother to his six motherless bairns, but she declined, and a year afterwards married the minister at the Dissenting Chapel at Wethersfield, the Rev. Peter Sibree.

On 1st January, 1809, Patrick Brontë shook the dust off his feet and left Wethersfield.

For many, years there was a hiatus in the calendar of Patrick Brontë’s life, so far as it was generally known. The Church Register at Wethersfield shows that he ceased to be curate there in January, 1809, and the date of his entering upon his duties as curate at Dewsbury in December of the same year is fixed by an entry of marriage on the 11th of the month, in Dewsbury Parish Church register, signed by Patrick Brontë.

There is little to record, but it is now known that he spent the interval between January and December of the year 1809, in serving as curate at Wellington, near Shrewsbury. Wellington was far from being so congenial as Wethersfield; it was a small town given to mining, and Patrick Brontë only stayed one year.

In the matriculation register of St. John’s College, Cambridge, for the year 1802, appears the name of John Nunn, written in a bold, round hand, and standing next but one in order to Patrick Brontë’s rather effeminate signature. Mr. Nunn became a curate at Shrewsbury, and, after he left college, he seems to have kept up a regular correspondence with Patrick Brontë. It, is probable that, when he heard of his friend’s troubles at Wethersfield, he advised him to apply for the vacant curacy at Wellington. The vicar was the Rev. John Eyton, whose son, Robert William Eyton, was an antiquary and historian.

It is said that Patrick Brontë quarrelled with his old friend John Nunn, on hearing that he was about to be married, for the Wellington curate had arrived at very definite conclusions with regard to the subject of marriage after his experience at Wethersfield. It is surely the irony of fate which gave to Patrick Brontë the duty of joining in matrimony many of the couples married at Dewsbury Parish Church — his next curacy — for, on examining the register of this old church, which dates from the year 1538, it may be seen that Mr. Brontë officiated at most of the weddings from 1809 to 1811.

It is interesting to know that it was during his curacy at Wellington that he first became acquainted with the Rev. William Morgan, who was his fellow curate, and afterwards his cousin by marriage.

It is now more than a century since Patrick Brontë went to be curate to the Rev. John Buckworth, M.A., at Dewsbury Parish Church. Young Brontë was fortunate in his vicars, and to them, perhaps, may be traced his anxiety to become an accredited author, and even his famous daughters, who wrote so much before they succeeded in publishing anything, may owe something to their father’s literary vicars. The Rev. Dr. Jowett, of Wethersfield, published at least one volume of sermons, and Mr. Buckworth was known as a capable hymn-writer, and the author of a volume of Devotional Discourses for the use of families. A copy of this work was included among Patrick Brontë’s books sold in 1907, and it bears the inscription:

To the Rev. P. Brontë, A.M.

A Testimonial of Sincere Esteem from the Author.

The neighbourhood of Dewsbury, like many other industrial centres, has lost most of the charm it once possessed. It is now a busy woollen manufacturing district, but in Patrick Brontë’s days it was a typical Yorkshire country town. The winding Calder, upon whose banks, according to tradition, Paulinus stood and planted the Gospel Standard in 627, is now a muddy, polluted stream. Even when Charlotte Brontë was at school at Dewsbury, it was a picturesque rural spot, rich with sylvan beauty, the heights of Crackenedge and Westboro’ crowned with woods, and little farmsteads dotted here and there, whilst below were grassy meadows and little cottages, each with its weaving shed situate in the valley through which the then clear Calder wended its way.

Dewsbury was a place to revel in, so far as its scenery went, but Patrick Brontë arrived at a troublesome time, just before the Luddite riots, and the people of the district were lawless and coarse. There was plenty for the curate to do with such a population as he found in Dewsbury, for bull-baiting, badger-baiting and dog-fighting were the common amusements of many of the lower classes, and such sports generally ended in drunken brawls and brutal fights. The vicar — the Rev. John Buckworth — supposed by some to be the original of Dr. Boultby in Shirley, though others assume that the Rev William Morgan, Patrick Brontë’s brother-in-law, was the prototype — did not fail to denounce this lawlessness from his pulpit, as the testimony of his printed sermons proves. The Yorkshire temperament and pugnacity found its match in the young Irish curate, and several stories are told of his prowess in those days, the most commonly remembered having found its way into his daughter’s novel, Shirley, where she gives a graphic description in Chapter XVII of a Sunday School procession on Whit-Monday, though she need not have gone further than Haworth for a parallel incident, except that she mentions that “the fat Dissenter,” who gave out the hymn, was left sitting in the ditch. The Dewsbury story differs slightly from the one associated with the history of Haworth. At Dewsbury, it is said that the Sunday School procession, on the anniversary day, was on its way to sing on the village green, when a half-drunken man attempted to bar the way. The young curate rushed forward, seized the man by the collar, and threw him into the ditch on the road-side, after which the procession continued in peace. On its return, the man, somewhat sobered, and resenting the indignity to which he had been subjected, waited to “wallop the parson.” He, however, thought “discretion to be the better part of valour,” when he saw the tall, athletic curate at the head of the procession, and he wisely made no attempt to interfere with its progress.

Another tale which has lingered in the Calder Valley tells of the parish bell-ringers practising on the Sunday morning for a forthcoming contest, and how the young curate rushed up the belfry stairs with his shillelagh in his hand, and drove them all out with a stern rebuke; but perhaps the best known story is of the rescue of a boy from drowning in the river Calder. Mr. Brontë jumped into the stream in his clerical attire, and after rescuing the boy, took him home and saw that he was attended to, before he thought of his own wet garments.

Mr. W. W. Yates, in his book The Father of the Brontës, tells us that Patrick Brontë, when in Dewsbury, resided in the old vicarage, close by the church, having his own rooms. The house has since been demolished. Descendants of the old inhabitants, who knew him, speak of Mr. Brontë as not being very sociable, but he did his work well, and was considered a good preacher, taking a special interest in the Sunday Schools. The frugality of his early life in Ireland followed him into Yorkshire, and he is said to have lived mostly on oatmeal porridge and potatoes, with a dumpling by way of dessert after dinner. If report is to be credited, he wore a blue linen frock coat, and carried a shillelagh, like a true son of Erin. His vicar had an illness during his curacy, and the young Irishman felt constrained to send his sympathy in verse, and no fewer than twenty-nine six-line stanzas found their way to the vicar. It is not poetry, but it satisfied Patrick Brontë, and must have amused the recipient. One verse reads —

May rosy Health with speed return,

And all your wonted ardour bum,

And sickness buried in his urn

Sleep many years!

So, countless friends who loudly mourn,

Shall dry their tears!

Patrick Brontë’s reason for leaving Dewsbury is one which showed his Irish independence. It is said that, having been caught in a thunderstorm, he requested the vicar to take his place at the evening service, when one of the church officials remarked, “What! keep a dog and bark himself.” This so annoyed Patrick Brontë that he decided to resign his curacy. This apparently did not interfere with his friendly relations with the Vicar, for the living of Hartshead Church, a short distance away, was vacant at this time, and, as Mr. Buckworth had the right of presentation, he rewarded his hard-working curate, who thus became incumbent of Hartshead in 1811.

In the Hartshead Church register, the first entry made by the new vicar is on 3rd March, 1811, where he signs himself “Patrick Brontë, minister,” and on the 11th of March in the same year he signs himself in the Dewsbury church register, “P. Brontë, curate.”

He had been a curate for six years, and he now realised his ambition in securing a church of his own. That the “Irish curate” had made a name for himself is evidenced by the fact that members of the Dewsbury church often walked over to Hartshead to hear him preach. He had, what was considered at that time a rare accomplishment, the gift of being able to preach without reference to his manuscript, which counted for much among the Yorkshire folk. In January, 1899, a brass plate was unveiled in Dewsbury Parish Church to the memory of Patrick Brontë with the following inscription —

In Memory of

The Reverend Patrick Brontë B.A.

St. John’s College Cambridge

Born at Emdale County Down

St. Patrick’s Day 1777

Died at Haworth Parsonage

June 7th, 1861

Curate of Wethersfield Essex 1806-1809

Wellington 1809. Dewsbury 1809-1811

Incumbent of Hartshead 1811-1815

Thornton Near Bradford 1813-1820

Haworth 1820-1861

Erected by Admirers of Him and His Talented

Daughters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.

Had he not been the father of the famous novelists, it is certain his memory would not have been thus honoured.

Dewsbury figures in Shirley as Whinbury. It was noted for its Sunday Schools, which were established even before the movement by Robert Raikes. Twenty-five years after Patrick Brontë left Dewsbury, his daughter Charlotte came to live in the parish, being then twenty years of age. She had accepted the appointment of governess in Miss Wooler’s school, which had just been transferred from Roe Head, Mirfield, to Heald’s House, at the top of Dewsbury Moor. Whilst here, she attended the Dewsbury Parish Church, where her father had formerly been curate. Some of the older inhabitants used to speak of her as a shy little person, very short and dumpy, but with very expressive eyes and a most attentive worshipper in church. It was whilst teaching there that she had a bad attack of hypochondria, and the doctor told her, as she valued her life, to leave Dewsbury and get home to Haworth. In Villette she mentions this serious attack, connecting it with Lucy Snowe, and in one of her letters she speaks of Dewsbury as “a poisoned place for me.”

Chapter 3 — The Rev. Patrick Brontë at Hartshead (1811-1815)

Hartshead-cum-Cliftonis about four miles from Dewsbury, so that Patrick Brontë did not find much difference either in the type of people or in the district after he left Dewsbury. Hartshead Church was in the same parish, and is dedicated to St. Peter. It is known in Shirley as Nunnely Church, and is beautifully situated on a hill overlooking the valley of the Calder. Near the church gates are the old stocks, which were often in use in Patrick Brontë’s days. The church, though altered and renovated since Mr. Brontë’s time, still retains its ancient appearance. The square tower, the oldest remaining portion of the church, was formerly surmounted by an old, weatherbeaten ash tree, which had its roots in the roof of the tower. In the vestry are portraits of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the Rev. Thomas Atkinson, who followed Mr. Brontë and was the godfather of Charlotte Brontë, and his successor, the Rev. Thomas King.

The registers of the church go as far back as 1612. They have lately been of service to the old inhabitants who wished to claim their old-age pension. In addition to the signature of Patrick Brontë there is to be seen the certificate of baptism of Patrick Brontë’s eldest child, Maria Brontë, who was born in 1813, but not christened until 23rd April, 1814, Shakespeare’s birthday, and the anniversary of Mr. Brontë’s Degree day at Cambridge. The christening ceremony was performed, as the register shows, by Patrick Brontë’s relative, the Rev. William Morgan, of Bradford Parish Church.

Patrick Brontë found lodgings at a farm, known in his day as Lousey Thorn, but now called by the more euphonious title of Thorn Bush Farm. The tenants of the farm, when he stayed there, were Mr. and Mrs. Bedford, who had at one time been servants at Kirklees Hall. According to the church register, Mr. Brontë entered on his duties at St. Peter’s Church, Hartshead, on March 3rd, 1811, and not in July, as has been frequently stated, for there is an entry in March signed — Patrick Brontë, minister. The new incumbent had been preceded some ten years previously by the noted Rev. Hammond Roberson, M.A., a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, who had also been one of Patrick Brontë’s predecessors as curate of Dewsbury Parish Church. Mr. Roberson, in many ways, resembled Patrick Brontë, for he was a bold and fearless preacher, with a strong personality, a stalwart Tory of the old school, a man of indomitable will, and self-sacrificing and generous in his nature. After resigning his curacy at Dewsbury, he started a boys’ school, renting for the purpose Squirrel’s Hall on Dewsbury Moor. He afterwards transferred the school to Heald’s Hall, and such was his success that he saved enough to enable him to build Liversedge Church, which cost over £7,000, and where he became vicar in 1816. Charlotte Brontë has portrayed him in Shirley as Parson Helstone, “the old Cossack,” as she calls him, but he must have resembled her father very much, for those who knew Patrick Brontë in later days recognised him in the delineation of Mr. Helstone; no doubt something from both clergymen helped to build up the character. Charlotte Brontë, in a letter to Mr. Williams, says that she only saw the original of Mr. Helstone once when she was a girl of ten, at the consecration of a church on September 4th, 1827, which Ellen Nussey referred to as St. John’s on Dewsbury Moor.

The description given in Shirley of Mr. Helstone — the clerical Cossack — fits Mr. Roberson.

“He was not diabolical at all. The evil simply was — he had missed his vocation: he should have been a soldier, and circumstances had made him a priest. For the rest he was a conscientious, hard-headed, hard-handed, brave, stem, implacable, faithful little man: a man almost without sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid: but a man true to principle — honourable, sagacious, and sincere.”

Mr. Roberson was building his church at Liversedge at the time that Patrick Brontë was incumbent of Hartshead, and he was a prominent character during the Luddite riots, an account of which Charlotte Brontë heard from her father and the people in the neighbourhood when she came to live there. Mrs. Gaskell gives a very good account of Mr. Roberson, of whom she heard much when visiting Miss Wooler and Ellen Nussey. The more eccentric the character, the more Mrs. Gaskell enjoyed writing about it.

Heald’s Hall, the residence of Hammond Roberson, was the largest house in the neighbourhood, and must not be confused with Heald’s House, where Charlotte Brontë was teacher with Miss Wooler. In the Liversedge church is a stained-glass window, erected to the memory of Hammond Roberson, with an inscription, “To the glory of God and in memory of the Rev. Hammond Roberson, M.A.; founder of this church in 1816, and its first incumbent, who died August, 1841, aged 84 years.” In the adjoining graveyard is a very small gravestone, about half-a-yard high, with just the name, age, and date of burial. The vicar advocated one small gravestone to each person, and he insisted on all stones being uniform. It is said that one parishioner erected a head-stone larger than the others, and the vicar had it taken up and thrown into the hollow at the bottom of the churchyard.

Another grave in the Liversedge churchyard which merits attention is that of William Cartwright, the original of Robert Gerard Moore, of Shirley; on it is a simple inscription, “William Cartwright of Rawfolds, died 15th April, 1839, aged 64 years.”

In the year after Mr. Brontë became incumbent of Hartshead, the whole of the West Riding of Yorkshire was in constant turmoil. Sixty-six persons were tried at York for various offences connected with the Luddite rising against the introduction of machinery. Seventeen were executed, and six were transported for seven years. The two big mill-owners in the Hartshead district — Cartwright of Rawfolds, Liversedge, and Horsfall of Marsden — were considered by the workpeople to be the chief offenders in the district, for both had decided to stock their mills with machinery. Parson Roberson took the side of the mill-owners, and had no sympathy with the workpeople, preaching from the pulpit against the Luddites, and doing all he could to make the workers bend to their employers. Mr. Brontë also took the same view, and Mary Taylor, writing to Mrs. Gaskell in 1857 from New Zealand, acknowledging a copy of the first edition of the Life of Charlotte Brontë, says: “You give much too favourable an account of the black-coated and Tory savages that kept the people down and provoked excesses in those days. Old Roberson said he would wade to the knees in blood rather than the then state of things should be altered, a state including Com Law, Test Law, and a host of other oppressions.”

Charlotte Brontë describes the Luddite riots in Shirley. For this purpose she got the loan of a file of copies of the Leeds Mercury covered by the period; her father also was able to give her material assistance from the standpoint of an eyewitness of some of the stirring events, and her old schoolmistress, Miss Wooler, used to tell her pupils of her recollections of some of the scenes when taking the girls for their daily walks around the neighbourhood.

The rendezvous of the Luddites of the district was not far from Patrick Brontë’s home in Hartshead. It was by the Dumb Steeple — a monument without an inscription, hence its name. Here the men met at midnight. Near by was the inn known as “The Three Nuns,” where they adjourned after taking the oath and learning the pass-words, which were said to be “go” and “inn.” The men were also drilled in the use of certain signs which were quite masonic.

In Ben O’ Bill’s, the Luddite, Mr. D. F. E. Sykes, LL.B., a native of Huddersfield, quoting from old manuscripts of the days of the Luddites, says: “Mr. Cartwright was more of a foreigner nor an Englishman. A quiet man with a cutting tongue. Had ne’er a civil word for a man, an’ down on him in a jiffy if he looked at a pot o’ beer. Drank nowt himself... Was sacking the old hands and stocking Rawfolds with machines; and Parson Roberson was worse nor him.”